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A narrow victory would be no victory for Kim Beazley. So whether he wins or loses in today's vote, he is finished, writes Peter Hartcher.

THE end of the Kim Beazley era appears to have arrived, with the veteran leader facing humiliation today much as he has always conducted himself - with decency.

The challenger, Kevin Rudd, last night held a narrow lead, but even if Beazley somehow manages to win today's ballot it will be a faux victory. Why?

Because of the closeness of the vote, any majority for Beazley would be a slender one. The man chosen unanimously to take the leadership of his party two years ago could not go to an election against John Howard with a public vote of no confidence from nearly half his party.

A narrow victory would be no victory. It would render his leadership untenable. The party would continue to tear at itself until he yielded to the inevitable.

So whether he wins or loses today, Beazley is finished. After 26 years in Parliament, half a dozen ministerial portfolios, three terms as leader of the opposition, and a time as deputy prime minister, the former Rhodes scholar and one-time gravedigger has met the end of his political ambitions.

It will be a matter of the most bitter irony to him that he faces his removal at a time when the opinion polls show that Labor is well ahead of the Government.

He did what his party asked him to do. After the trauma of the Mark Latham leadership Labor chose Beazley to stabilise the party and rebuild. That is just what he did. As he says daily, he has made Labor "contestable" again. But his party wants more. After a decade in the wilderness, Labor wants to win. Beazley is a stabiliser, not a winner, the caucus has convinced itself.

But with Labor's share of the two-party preferred vote at 56 per cent to the Government's 44 in the Herald/ACNielsen poll, how can this be?

Labor has grown wary of the mirage of mid-term majorities that turn to election-day ignominy. And with Beazley's personal approval ratings stuck at losing levels, there is a good deal of evidence that the public listens to Beazley now only to laugh at him.

So, increasingly dissatisfied with the prospect of genteel defeat under Beazley, Labor is working itself up for a high-risk run at victory with Rudd. It is a choice, as Tony Abbott nicely put it yesterday, between "a proven failure and a potential disaster".

Kevin Rudd, with Julia Gillard as deputy, will bring enough freshness to, at the very least, grab back the attention of a heedless electorate. And the poll suggests that they bring the potential to do a good deal more. It suggests a new leadership could lead to a historic resurgence for Labor.

For 20 years Labor has been bedevilled by the steady erosion of its primary vote. This is the structural problem of modern Labor. Traditional ALP voters, angry at the party's inexorable shift to the right since the ascendancy of Bob Hawke, or won over by John Howard, have left Labor and never returned.

Labor's peak share of the primary vote in the decade of the Howard Government was 40.1 per cent; its lowest was 37.64 per cent, at the 2004 election.

If an election were held today Beazley's Labor would attract 41 per cent, the poll shows. But led by Rudd it would surge to 48 per cent. This is the highest in any ACNielsen poll in 13 years.

Why? The implication is that many disgruntled former Labor voters, progressives who are not interested in Beazley's Labor, may be prepared to return to the fold under Rudd and Gillard.

However, to hold the centre and bring back the progressives Rudd and Gillard would need to hold to responsible, mainstream economic and security policy, while offering new and enticing ideas in social and greenhouse policy.

And they would need to weave it into a cohesive narrative, a story of an alternative future Australia. That is a formidable challenge. But they would have the first prerequisite - the attention of the voting public.

Through all this, Beazley has maintained his fundamental decency. Faced with a challenge, he could have stonewalled and refused to allow a ballot. He didn't - he immediately agreed. Yesterday he called for a clean fight. He has refused to blackguard his opponents.

Unfortunately for Beazley, decency is not sufficient as a leadership qualification. But it may be some consolation.

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1165080815818-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/national/decency-not-enough-to-make-great-leader/2006/12/03/1165080815818.htmlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald2006-12-04Decency not enough to make great leaderPeter Hartcher Political EditorA narrow victory would be no victory for Kim Beazley. So whether he wins or loses in today's vote, he is finished, writes Peter Hartcher.Nationalhttp://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/12/03/gr_wilcoxtoon_wideweb__470x443,2.jpg